Tradition
by JealousOfTheMoon
Summary: It seems to be the morning for breaking it... and when the dust clears, who is left standing? Certainly not whom tradition decrees! Oneshot, GoldenAge.Trords!


Definition: _tradition—a long-established or inherited way of thinking or acting; a customary or characteristic method or manner. _

Disclaimer: _I'm a girl, not an overgrown dwarf who has cut off his beard, so obviously my name is not Clive Staples. Also, quote taken from Shakespeare's Henry V, Act V, Scene I is not owned or used for profit in any way by myself; I am merely an admiring byreader._

Dedication: _to _**violamom**_, whose review on _Conspiracies and Sudden Cognomens_ reminded me of various ridiculous shows that I and my siblings often put on at the table during meals. It struck me as something the Pevensies could have done…and this came out of it. Also dedicated to _**Fluellen**_, a character who has a brilliantly hilarious scene in Shakespeare's _Henry V_ where he tries to coerce Pistol into eating a leek… er, it's just funny, and the line about tradition especially inspired this also. _

Tradition _–by JotM_

_"Go, go: you are a counterfeit cowardly knave. Will you mock at an ancient tradition, begun upon an honourable respect, and worn as a memorable trophy of predeceased valour, and dare not avouch in your deeds any of your words?"_

One fine morning in the Golden Age of Narnia, the Four Sovereigns sat around breakfast comfortably. 'Twas all please-pass-thes and the how-have-you-slepts…a nice, lazy morning meal in Cair Paravel. A mole dozed at the door to the breakfast hall, and the conversation around the table was light—pleasant—barely existent as they all filled their mouths with food rather than words. In other words, things were as they always were at breakfast. And yet, the High King noticed, as he looked about the table, it was a little _too_ pleasant—as if something had changed, and someone was trying too hard to cover it up. He'd noticed it yesterday morning, and had deliberated for some time over what to do. Well, the plan was laid—now it was left to see whether the change was still being made, or if the changer had repented. He caught Susan's eye and she nodded towards Edmund. A-ha! No such repentance, still the source of the disquiet. It was time to confront the culprit as planned…

"Edmund," Peter said suddenly, severely. "What is the meaning of this?"

Edmund froze, stared rather like a deer in the headlights. Susan and Lucy, seated on either side of him across from each other, turned their heads simultaneously and blinked with synchronized surprise. It was rather frightening how they could do that sometimes…

"Might I request, brother, what has you so affronted on this beautiful spring morning?" Edmund began, attempting to be light and casual. _No no no no no…please don't have noticed… _

"It has come to Our attention, _brother,_" Peter stated somewhat pompously, "that something is quite out of the ordinary. We demand an explanation."

Susan and Lucy gave simultaneous gasps. "Indeed, Our royal brother is correct!" Susan exclaimed. "There is definitely something altered about you, Edmund, although I confess it had escaped my notice—"

"And mine." Lucy chimed in. "Oh, Edmund, how _could _you do such a thing without telling _us_ first?"

_And I'd hoped they wouldn't notice…_

"Oh, come off it, you three," he said in an attempt to be casual. Peter glared at him and he hastily assumed his official manners. "My royal brother and sister," he began again. "with the greatest respect, might I humbly suggest that this is none of your—er—most noble business?"

"None of Our business!" Peter exclaimed furiously, while Lucy hid her face in her napkin and Susan drew in a breath sharply.

"King Edmund," she replied frostily, as Peter was still seething and currently unable to form any more coherent words, "surely so great a change in yourself would merit some sort of announcement to your royal siblings."

"But it's really not that important a matter—" Edmund protested, but got no further.

"Not _important?_" Lucy nearly shrieked, and began sobbing into her napkin. "Oh, Ed, and I'd thought you'd _changed! _You…you…_counterfeit, cowardly knave!_"

"You mock ancient tradition, sir," Susan said sternly. "You have begun with honour and ended with shame." Edmund could only gape.

_Wait…are they still talking about what I think they're talking about? Or is this something big…what?!_

"Well? Have you no words to say for your deeds?" Peter demanded.

At first, the best Edmund could do was mimic a fish out of water. Then, one word burst forth—_"What?!"_ Edmund shouted it again. "_What?!"_ . He jumped to his feet, completely flabbergasted and now feeling quite vexed and mistreated. "I'll tell you what's changed—_you_ people have, making mountains out of molehills—no offense," he bowed to the mole who was standing guard at the door. The mole bowed to signify no offense taken. "—and behaving like utter lunatics over ridiculous matters!"

"It's…not…ridiculous…" Lucy sniffed pitifully, and then suddenly—to Edmund's great bewilderment—began to laugh. "S-sorry Peter…S-sorry, Susan…" she wailed hysterically. "I c-can't do it anymore…look at his face… ha ha… _look at his face!"_

Edmund's face, apparently, was such a comical mixture of confusion, anger, annoyance, and fear that the High King and Gentle Queen took one look and began bellowing riotously as well. Well, Peter bellowed riotously, that is. Susan had more of an inane giggle than a riotous bellow. Edmund scowled darkly, which only set them off worse.

"Stop it!" he demanded. "I say, you three, think of who you are! Think of your duty to Our Royal Reputation!"

But if anything, this made them laugh even harder.

"Think of your…your…Royal reputation, Ed!" Peter gasped.

"Yes," Susan giggled, "for shame! Such fickleness in a…usually…ha ha…steady and serious ruler!"

"Where has your…your…sense of…pru-pr-prudence…gone, O Just One?" Lucy wiped away a few tears and set about pounding the table in mirth.

Edmund turned smartly on his heel and strode away. "Siblings," he said bitterly to himself, trying to drown out the howlings of the ones behind him. "Change one _tiny_ detail and they go berserk. I mean, I know I had such unswerving principles against the idea until now, and I know I made them rather publick, but can't a chap change his mind when he wants to? Faugh!" He swooshed past the rather baffled mole at the door and stalked towards the stairs. Then he stopped suddenly and turned back, entering the room so suddenly that the guard at the door (who had been in the process of closing it) had to open it so suddenly that the poor mole nearly fell over.

"All I did," Edmund said, taking a heavy seat at the table, "was put cream on my porridge, and yes, I'll admit that I _have_ protested such a practice as disgusting and repulsive, but tastes change and—oh, _stop laughing!_" With great effort he refrained from heaving the jug of cream at the three of them and instead sat back with a scowl on his face.

Pretty soon, both mirth and anger subsided. Edmund managed to laugh at the whole affair—it had been rather well-done, and he'd nearly thought he'd done something wrong before he'd realized it was all about…_cream_. The other three gave Edmund a fitting apology, complete with tears from Lucy (fake, he knew), Peter falling to his knees, and Susan giving him her most winning smile. Of course he had to forgive them… but the incident was far from being forgotten.

Revenge would be his, he knew--he just had to figure out who deserved revenge. He was quite sure Lucy wasn't responsible for it. She didn't come up with things like that. He figured that Peter had had the idea and Susan had made it happen.

Then he saw it. His older sister—her hand reached out to take it—such an offense surely could not be allowed to pass by without confrontation! He slyly nudged Lucy with his foot and nodded towards their older sister. Lucy's eyes lit up. His younger sister might not come up with all the devious plots, but she sure knew how to pick up on one when it came her way.

"Susan," Lucy said suddenly, severely. "What is the meaning of _this_?" she gestured to the object held in her sister's frozen right hand. Edmund and Peter's heads snapped up simultaneously and they slowly turned towards her together as they blinked in synchronization. Frightening, how they could do that…

"Gentle Sister," Peter chimed in, sounding very much shocked and disappointed, "I had thought you more steadfast in principle than to sink to…to _this._"

"Oh, Susan," Edmund said, in a very heartbroken tone. Susan's eyes nearly popped out at the anguish in her usually reserved brother's tone. "How _could _you? You _promised_—you _swore_ you never would!" He promptly burst into tears in his napkin.

Then she realized what it was about. "Oh, get _off it_ already!" Susan said, trying to laugh but feeling irritated. She had not planned on this coming back to get her. "So I orchestrated the whole thing about the cream, Ed—didn't I say I was sorry? And it was Peter's idea, anyway!"

"I don't see," Edmund sniffled, inwardly thinking '_right. Peter's next.' _ "I don't see what that's got to do with anything. It doesn't matter. What matters is that you are abandoning all sense of … of self and dignity and _right_…for … for _that!"_ He gestured to the offending object in her right hand.

"By the Lion!" Susan huffed, and Lucy and Peter gave shocked gasps that sounded like "language!" Edmund only sobbed even harder. "Can't a Queen put raisins on her porridge for a change—or is she forever to be held to her words against the idea? Look! I don't care what you say!" she dropped the entire bowl-ful of the dried fruit into her porridge and snatched the latter up from the table, storming off in a fury, stuffing it in her mouth as she went past the rather shocked mole and up the stairs.

"My, my," Peter said in a shocked tone. "Abandoning her principles where manners are concerned as well as raisins. Didn't know she had it in her." Then he waved his fist triumphantly at the closed door. "Oh, well done, Ed! Good for you, spotting the raisins!"

"Yes, Edmund, I didn't know you could cry so well," Lucy praised. "For someone who runs at the sight of tears, you're an absolute proficient—why, Ed, you can give up the act now, Susan's gone!" For her brother was still sobbing quietly.

A look of anxious foreboding came over Peter's face quite suddenly. _What's he doing…?_

Then Edmund looked up from his napkin, hiccoughing and sniffing. A dark look was on his tear-streaked face.

"Peter, why are you spreading both jam _and_ butter onto the _same piece of bread?"_ he demanded blackly.

"Er—well—I thought I'd try—"

"Oh, Peter, how _could_ you be so unprincipled? How can you rule your own people properly if you insist on being so fickle at breakfast?!" Lucy broke in with horrified tones, picking up the joke as smoothly as if this had been rehearsed.

Peter buried his face in his hands (and thus, unwittingly, in his buttered and jammed toast as well) and muttered something about traitorous older sisters and brilliant ideas backfiring. He then realized that his toast was plastered across his face and hastily excused himself, trying to make his way to the door without uncovering his face. He got there eventually, but without the help of all the pillars that kept jumping in his way…

Lucy watched him retire with an amused look. "Hmm. I'm rather glad I told you about Susan's scheme yesterday, or perhaps _I _might have been on the receiving end of all that." There was a muffled thump as Peter undoubtedly ran into a wall or tripped on a stair. "I hope he's not hurt," she began anxiously, but then laughed softly. "Oh, Ed! Tradition would have it that the eldest brother and sister should have it all in the order they prefer," she remarked airily. "But, Royal Brother, speaking as the _youngest_, I think we know better than tradition, do we not?

Edmund stood and offered her his arm with a bow and a flourish. "Indeed, Royal Sister, that we do."

She accepted his arm with a magnificent curtsey, and they swept grandly out of the breakfast hall together, their faces stiff masks of importance. The minute the door ward closed the door behind them, however, they burst into a torrent of giggles (Lucy) and snorts (Edmund), clutching at each other to keep from falling from mirth.

The Beast keeping the door heard the sounds (of course) and shook his head. Royal Sister and Brother, indeed! He was thought to be a clever Mole, but here he found himself quite unable to understand the logic behind these morning rituals. He'd seen the kings and queens at their best in court matters, and it didn't make sense that they should act like…children…at breakfast. And conspiring against one another in such a childish fashion…and then to become so caught up in such silly acts…!

(It struck him as rather juvenile and ridiculous, but you see, that was because he was an only child.)

_This is a spur-of-the-moment story, very much in the same vein as CASC. (I've been all by my lonesome for quite a while without my very large family, so I can't help it if all my silly brain wants to write are ridiculous antics done by siblings—what can I say? I miss mine.) Anyway, I think of the Pevensies as being younger in this story, at the point where they're beginning to adopt the more formal way of talking and yet still where they are able to make fun of it in private… I've tried to keep them from being OOC, but do bear in mind that when people get extremely silly—and everyone does—it's hard to maintain that. Being silly with siblings only intensifies it, because you all have the same sort of silliness… ah, I'll stop trying to explain it. Let me know what you think (reviews!)._

_God bless. –JotM_


End file.
